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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601019">Stake Your Claim</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49'>kuro49</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Coming Out, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bites, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Possessive Behavior</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:33:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,614</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Slade doesn't do well with love confessions, he really rather if Bruce would just try to throw him off of the edge of this roof instead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bruce Wayne/Slade Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>DCU Rarepair Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stake Your Claim</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/gifts">Romiress</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>was originally hoping to make this a jefferson/slade/bruce fic for you but alas, it didn't feel right to write you jefferson entirely from his wiki page because i don't read comics at all 😔 </p><p>thank you to salmonellagogo for wrangling the cursed hell out of all those commas along with everything else 😂 this fic wouldn't be nearly where it is right now without your help 💖 another thank you goes to OkayAristotle for providing insider info that giftee would appreciate some mentions of #dogtags ;)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Neither one of them are new to taunts when tossed across the span of cracked rooftop tiles. They aren’t even new to being physically tossed that same wide stretch of distance to land in a heap. </p><p>Slade doesn’t freeze. But this here is enough to make even Deathstroke pause. </p><p>"You're not part of Gotham,” Batman says to him, “but you're mine." </p><p>Point blank, and he would really rather take a bullet anywhere on his person than come face to face with a claim laid out as blatant as this one. </p><p>Stated like it’s a matter of fact, upfront and bold. </p><p>Except Bruce as Slade knows him is anything but. The man likes his self-imposed rules too much to go ruining a single thing to be with <em> Slade </em>of all people. </p><p>It is a very different line to cross when it involves a nameless Alpha that happens to be caught once or twice rolling out of the bed of Gotham’s very own poster boy, Brucie Wayne. He is a man who has been rumoured to be everything from an Alpha to an Omega to a Beta to absolutely no designation at all. And that’s all good and fine.</p><p>That’s a double spread in Gotham’s trashiest gossip rag at most. </p><p>That's pointedly not Bruce Wayne dressed as Batman shacking up with Slade Wilson while he is in his full Deathstroke regalia. </p><p>It goes unspoken that they do not do this with their alter egos at the helm. </p><p>Or, it’s supposed to.</p><p>But here goes Batman leaving no room for Deathstroke to read between the lines with a statement as simple as that. They are standing across from each other on the rooftop of the Gotham Art Gallery. </p><p>The profile where his mask goes from black to orange catches the bright glow of red from the flashing billboard across the street. He's got his Ikon suit on, both swords shealthed at his back but like his gun, they are all ready to be drawn at a fraction of a second's notice.</p><p>"Greedy, aren't ya?" Deathstroke bites back.</p><p>It's not suspicion, even if it inspires a lot of the same feelings when Slade is looking for a trap where he doesn’t find one. His voice is steady because he isn’t about to admit to any of that in the face of Bruce’s declaration like they have any kind of rightful claim to each other. Because they don't, Slade wants to say. They can't.</p><p>“You don’t know the half of it.”</p><p>And he really fucking doesn’t.</p><p>The timbre to Batman’s voice shouldn’t feel like a practiced sweeping kick that land solidly in his gut. Meta or not, superpowered or not, the righteousness in that simple sentence said then stated again makes contact, and it <em> hurts </em>like a bitch. </p><p>Like somehow, Slade is the clueless one in it all.</p><p>There is nothing black and white to a situation where Deathstroke gets into bed with Batman. Where their tumble is between the sheets and every mark left behind feels like a lingering longing kiss instead of a punch that catches on the sharp edge of teeth. Except all the gray in between still doesn't get to become a situation where the Alpha of Gotham claims a stray Alpha as his own.</p><p>The steady thump of Bruce’s heartbeat that Slade can pick up beneath the Kevlar and the well-worn leather of his suit spells out conviction. Like this is already a done deal.</p><p>Deathstroke doesn't think it can be made any worse than that. </p><p>Because the conclusion beginning to solidify itself into what might just be the truth is not even something Slade can fathom. He can't help it. He bites down until he risks cracking a molar if only to keep the growl born of basic instincts from breaking clean out of him. </p><p>Only Batman is illuminated in neon red, his mouth pulls into a tense, hard line and that is the only indication for Deathstroke that any of this runs far deeper than either one of them thought it would. </p><p>Slade really rather that Bruce just tries to throw him off the edge of this roof.</p><p>A tilt of Batman's cowl in the direction of Bruce's home, and Deathstroke wishes he could simply punch himself out. </p><p> </p><p>It's not crumbling bricks at his back or the grimy rotting stench of last night's garbage with every gasping inhale.</p><p>It's a good, soft bed in the Manor.</p><p>It’s his own bed for that matter. Thousand count sheets being rumpled between his fingers as he reaches for skin, but Bruce only gets both wrists pinned to the side for his efforts. And for all the detecting that this detective can do, Bruce thinks he might just be looking at all the wrong places for all the wrong things when he is looking up to see Slade Wilson above him.</p><p>There is the glint of his dog tags as they sway, a soft clack of them as they collide. </p><p>"Stay," Slade tells him. The rest of the sentence of <em> where I put you </em> goes unsaid, and his hands echo the same sentiment when his grip goes painfully tight around each of Bruce's wrists. </p><p>His voice is sure, is hard, is all command.</p><p>Even if Bruce cannot be affected as an Alpha, he is still pulled towards that single word like it compels him. </p><p>Reeled in like a fresh catch, yanked in like Slade's hand is at his neck and squeezing down on his throat to make him choke on it.</p><p>Bruce might not show it but he wonders if Slade has given up all pretenses to even bother with reading between all the lines of this whole charade they have. Between the two of them and every last alter ego to come along with an existence as complicated as the ones they live, Bruce makes it clear in his answer: “We haven't done this enough times for you to figure out that I won't?" </p><p>They are in the master bedroom, and the both of them reek of every toxic thing Alphas have ever been made out to be.</p><p>Bruce never stays where he is put while Slade just never stays down.</p><p>"And haven't we done this enough times for you to figure that's hardly about to deter me?" Slade's smile is all teeth, feral and unkind and Bruce swallows thickly at the sight.</p><p>His answer this time is voiceless, a flex of his fingers turning blunt nails to bite into the sheets. </p><p>It gets Slade to squeeze down further, his grip grinding the bones in Bruce's wrists together until the blood is going straight to his groin. If Bruce is hoping for a crack in that armour or a glimpse of something to light up like realization, he isn't sure he will get through to Slade before he's already coming inside of his pants.</p><p>The man continues with the most lecherous of expressions pulling across his face to ask: "So, what’s it gonna be, Wayne?" </p><p>And the weight of his name sounds hefty coming off of Slade's tongue. </p><p>Bruce's hair is still wet, the pillow beneath his head damp from his shower in the Cave. Wrapped in just a bathrobe, black and thin and feeling a lot like satin to the touch, Bruce rides that pressing nudge of Slade's knee to spread his inner thighs apart even further, chasing for friction.</p><p>All for the man still pinning him to the bed like a specimen to be dissected.</p><p>"What did I already tell you?" Bruce tries for another attempt, at driving that same point home. It's not meant to be a low blow but Bruce also knows Slade will only see it as one.</p><p>Slade's mouth does something funny, like the man isn't sure whether to laugh or to yell.</p><p>They are at the cusp of a full blown fight, the kind where Batman is supposed to pull out all the stops from his utility belt, while Deathstroke's accelerated healing isn't just nice but a necessity. And instead of settling for an argument to tear visceral wounds down to the very bone with the barest amount of words, Bruce tries for something else.</p><p>Brutality disguised in the sweetest motions.</p><p>Given the kind of men that they are, kindness is received with wariness.</p><p>Bruce turns his face up to Slade. And it's simple for him to open up like he's starved for it when Slade leans down and presses his mouth to Bruce. </p><p>The move has Slade forcing a space between Bruce's thighs all for himself. Letting go of his wrists just to bring both palms to his hips, thumbs digging into the junction of his pelvis, fingers spanning the taut pull of muscles as Bruce tries to arch into the pin keeping him firmly against the mattress.</p><p>He is flushed against him, bare skin to bare skin. Bruce can feel the cool press of Slade’s tags quickly warming up against the heat between his collarbones. And there is a stray needy thought that comes to mind each time they are as close as they are now: Bruce wants the imprint of Slade Wilson’s name into his skin.</p><p>“Focus,” Slade says, licking into Bruce’s open mouth, devouring the taste. </p><p>Bruce makes a low guttural noise, savouring that same taste. And as Slade's teeth break Bruce's healing split lip in warning, it's that quick burst of copper to make them both achingly hard.</p><p>Bruce tries to buck into Slade's hands with a roll of his hips but Slade draws back, chuckling.</p><p>The sound is line molasses, catching Bruce in how deep and thick it spills over him.</p><p>“Yours?” Slade asks with false bravado. </p><p>And it is here in this moment that Bruce puts together the simple fact that Slade is only getting it <em> now</em>. Dragged across his mouth, Slade's lips still slick with blood and spit, he touches the rough stubble along the line of Bruce's jaw. </p><p>Just so he can sink his canines into the skin of Bruce’s throat.</p><p>“Like I said before.” Bruce slides his eyes shut with a gasp at the sharp pain, but instead of pulling away, he leans into it. And it is with an echoing groan of his own that he says, "<em>Mine.</em>" Again.</p><p> </p><p>There is sweat beading across Bruce's brows. His fingers have gone from tearing at the sheets to digging into the tense muscles of Slade's forearms as he strains just to keep from fucking into the tight hot clutch of Bruce's hole before he is ready. </p><p>Slade stays painfully still when he can tell just how wide he’s got Bruce split open on his cock. It’s a slow process of stop and start at Bruce’s say so while he adjusts. It's a terrible test of patience when Slade's knot is already beginning to swell at the base of his cock.</p><p>An unbearable clench all around him with Bruce trying to breathe around the intrusion. The inside of Bruce’s thighs are absolutely soaked with lube, glistening with every inch Slade presses deeper and deeper, and then further and further to fill Bruce up. </p><p>Slade thinks he could go into rut, just like this.</p><p>"<em> F—fuck</em>," Bruce rasps out when the head of Slade's cock bumps against a particular spot that gets him seeing white.</p><p>Slade tries to laugh at the absolute lack of eloquence in that. But Bruce cuts off that attempt well before it passes between the part of Slade's lips with another vice clench down.</p><p>"Fuckin'—" Slade bites off on a growl, echoing the same sentiment when he is sheathed down to the last inch just before his knot. Sweat trails the line of his throat to cascade down the front of his chest, and Bruce's eyes follow with a half-lidded gaze laden heavy with heat. </p><p>It's involuntary really when his eyes stop at the dog tags again, gaze tracing each raised letter to make up Slade’s name. Watching the sway of them as he moves to bury himself deeper inside of Bruce, and it's practically hypnotic. </p><p>Slade knows exactly what Bruce wants.</p><p>When he's completely opened for it.</p><p>The first time he challenged Bruce, he doesn't do it the way Bruce anticipates he would. Even though he can, Slade doesn't do it with brute force. Even when he can, Slade doesn't do it with threats that he is very much capable of carrying out if need be. The first time Slade challenges Bruce, he tips his head back, he bares his own throat for the taking. </p><p>He lets Bruce make the first mark. </p><p>And Bruce does.</p><p>Like the man does now. Exactly as their first. Just as Bruce has done since that very initial tip of his head back to have an Alpha's marking on an Alpha's throat.</p><p>At Slade's offer, Bruce responds in kind.</p><p>Instead of yanking Slade down to him so he can sink his teeth into the column of Slade's neck, Bruce plants his feet into the mattress. He doesn’t stay and he doesn’t lay there still and docile for Slade like probably anyone else would. Bruce pushes himself upwards, thick muscles coiled in the broad line of his shoulders as he is shoving off of the sheets. No reserve or hesitation, as if he trusts Slade to catch him as he does, Bruce carries that momentum with his full weight to settle in Slade’s lap.</p><p>He sits with a wide spread of his thighs on each side of Slade's hips, knees hitting the sheets with a soft sink of the mattress under their combined weight. </p><p>The position has Slade reaching even deeper inside of Bruce, stretching him out even further as his knot catches briefly at his rim. Almost but not quite. It still gets the both of them to draw in a sharp breath in unison when it already feels <em> this </em> fucking good and Slade hasn’t even begin to move. At this distance with their faces so close, the tips of their noses brush. </p><p>If it was evident before, it's painfully obvious now. Scents overlap scents. Scents <em>change</em>. The way Slade's ties in with Bruce's feels like there could be something new to be have here.</p><p>"Too much?" Slade asks with his mouth pulled into a great big grin, coarse and just a little mean with the way it shows off his teeth still streaked with Bruce's blood.</p><p>"Not nearly enough," Bruce mutters and even with that hazy edge of pain grounding him, he is more focused on the way Slade's cock drags along his walls. Cutting in hard and harsh and hot. </p><p>It's all uninhibited pleasure running up the line of his spine like a sure shot. </p><p> </p><p>Bruce’s hand wraps around the chain of Slade’s tags, the curved metal edges dig into his palm.</p><p>The two of them are breathing hard and Bruce is finally beginning to relax just enough to move. He raises up on his knees far enough that only the head of Slade's cock remains inside while the widest part of the crown tugs teasingly at his rim. He rocks his hips, takes Slade back in bit by bit, and he’s too slow when Slade is already dragging him right back down, fucking deep within him.</p><p>Sweat beading at their temples, Slade’s fingertips smear slick against Bruce's skin while his knot swells on every pass. Getting fatter and thicker to push against the tight clutch of the passage he's buried inside. Maybe it would be easy if one of them is an Omega. Maybe it would be easier if either one of them is anyone else but who they actually are. </p><p>But none of that takes away from how absolute this feels.</p><p>It might be all rut-talk but in the moment, it doesn't feel like an exaggeration at all when Slade lets Bruce lick the blood clean from his mouth before looking like he could do with more. Bruce has a conflicting sensation of full and stretched and empty and desperate to ride Slade until the inside of himself is carved out in the exact shape of the other Alpha's cock.</p><p>He takes him to the hilt once. He takes him the full way twice.</p><p>Bruce's hand comes up, and it's a slow, broadcasted motion as he cups the back of Slade’s head. It’s an entirely opposite move than the first one that brings Bruce from lying flat on his back to straddling Slade’s lap, working himself up and down on Slade's cock to chase an end that’s all for himself. </p><p>This one is deliberate all the same.</p><p>Slade tilts his head into Bruce's grip. And it is here and now that Bruce tangles his fingers into Slade's hair, winding into the long wisps of silver at his nape, pulling the arch of Slade's throat higher. Forcing that curve. Slade swallows and the bob of his Adam's apple is pronounced, especially so with Bruce unable to glance away from how he's made him to present as he is.</p><p>"You can still back out," Bruce admits, and Slade scoffs like he'd rather have Bruce slide a knife neatly between his ribs.</p><p>His jaw goes and stays tense. Each word sounds like it is being bodily carved out of him with every drop of Bruce’s hips to take him down to the hilt once more. "Is that supposed to be Bat for wanting to take back what you said?" Slade grits out.</p><p>Bruce's smile shows teeth, grip tightening as the blunt edge of his trimmed fingernails scratch against Slade's scalp tenderly. A motion that settles the mercenary like he's a spooked horse.</p><p>"There's no take back from here on out, Slade.” Bruce doesn't falter, carrying a conversation worth its weight in more than gold as he keeps moving. Rising up on his knees before dropping down to feel the full body slam of Slade's cock against the deepest part of him. He gasps out. “You get that, right?"</p><p>With his single eye blown wide and dark, the blue a thin ring around that, Slade breathes out: "In more ways than you can count."</p><p>Bruce keeps a brutal pace all the way until the very end. His fingers stay closed around the metal of Slade’s tags and his knuckles are bone white with the chained wrapped twice around his hand.</p><p>Slade turns into it, presents his throat for Bruce's taking like there's no threat to having teeth at his throat with the ability to tear. Bruce yanks the silvery white strands until Slade is moaning out loud from the sharp pain. </p><p>Biting down over Slade's bared throat while he topples over the edge, breaking skin as his orgasm wracks through him.</p><p>Bruce has the taste of Slade's blood flooding fresh and hot on his tongue while there is the pressure of Slade's hands wrapping all too tightly around the base of Bruce's cock. Giving him exactly what Alphas need: A vice grip like his knot thinks it should always be, all rough with his callouses but warm and still slick. It provides Bruce with the final push and release that he desperately needs in order to spill over the top of Slade's fists curled tightly around his cock and knot.</p><p>He thinks he shouts Slade’s name but a lot of it is a haze. </p><p>When Slade's knot finally catches inside of him, Bruce feels the way they come together as Slade spills into him. The way the muscles in his inner thighs quake from keeping him up, his knees imprinted with the folds in the sheets. The way his body drops down further to grind into the swollen knot that seems to take hold, drawing every single stray thought in his brain, still addled by his orgasm, to focus on just that.</p><p>He feels so full even with his breath knocked right out of him.</p><p>Reduced to a state like this, Alphas like them are all running on pure shots of primal instincts, reacting before there can be any thought for coherent sense. To know intimately the way Slade fills him up, coming thick and hot into him, Bruce imagines he can feel every last drop as he wrings him dry.</p><p>Interlocking, they go blissfully still.</p><p> </p><p>They lay there, and Bruce has no idea how long it takes for Slade's knot to go down.</p><p>His eyes are not on a clock or anywhere else really that isn't the way the bite from his teeth is left ringed in dried flickers of blood over Slade's throat. But it feels like quite a long while when his skin is gritty with sweat and his abdomen is filthy and still streaked in cooling cum. They are pressed together, skin alight with lingering heat. Bruce turns his head and grazes his lips against the hollow of Slade's neck, over the bite he's made, mouthing at it like he wants to leave another already.</p><p>"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Slade asks around a yawn that makes his jaw creak. His knot has gone down completely but he is still buried to the hilt inside of Bruce. He thinks he barely needs any time at all before he is ready for another round with Bruce warming his cock so sweetly like this, hole clenching weakly down around him every now and then. But Slade also has a feeling that they could just pass out if they stayed perfectly still just as they are.</p><p>"A bit longer," Bruce murmurs, lids heavy, going only where Slade moves him.</p><p>Both arms wrap around to pull him just that much closer, the two of them groan in quick succession at the way Slade jostles his half hard cock to slip a little further out. His knot is no longer swollen and keeping his rim to stretch taut but Bruce can still feel every shift of Slade's cock inside of him. The way Slade unclasps the chain around his neck is easy, almost understated with how he does it without comment.</p><p>The press of the dog tags is warm when Slade puts it on around Bruce's neck instead. Making him as his own with an additional weight that Bruce doesn’t mind carrying as far as it takes him.</p><p>“Whatever you say, Wayne.”</p><p>Bruce closes his eyes, just a bit longer, just another moment of all this, he thinks. </p><p> </p><p>If Bruce is to describe the kind of Alpha Slade is, broken down into the basic components of his scent, of the instincts to be evoked, it would be something a lot like this: Slade Wilson is the burning singe in the back of his throat, a long drink of aged whiskey that goes down the wrong way, ashes coming down like rain while the fire is set anew. </p><p>It's not romance by any means or measures.</p><p>They do not need it to be that. </p><p>And there is a confidence in knowing that Slade himself has the same line of thought. It's in the way he simply stands among the people dressed in their finest to catch a single glimpse of Brucie Wayne as the man shows up, fashionably late.</p><p>The Gotham Art Gallery still opens her arms to him like he's the only one she's been waiting up for.</p><p>The event has been in full swing for hours now but it is never too late to make a scene, especially not for a man like Bruce. They are in the main gallery that has been made into a gala space fit to impress even old Gotham and her new money elites too. They are all in a makeshift circle, live band at one corner of the room.</p><p>Slade stands there as well dressed as the next man, and he is Alpha down to his very stance, holding almost perfectly still even as Bruce walks right up to him without a hint of hesitation to his gait.</p><p>Bruce regards him, and it's no secret at all that he has seen this man before him drenched in blood, none of it his own. Each droplet only beginning to coagulate. And Bruce should have been disgusted at the slaughter because he knows a fight when he sees one, and this is not it, not by any measures at all. It's about chance and every single one of Deathstroke's opponents did not have an ounce of that.</p><p>Yet the only thing Bruce can fixate on is the Alpha's scent. Before Slade, Bruce isn't sure he's ever met an Alpha that's even come close to being his match. Not with his territory as the whole of Gotham, not with his pack being all of her innocents.</p><p>Slade is that, is more. </p><p>They are at a standstill once again, all eyes on just the two of them: Bruce Wayne and The One that Bruce Wayne picked out of a crowd.  </p><p>"Wilson."</p><p>"Hello, Wayne."</p><p>The distance they have drawn between the two of them is much shorter but it mirrors the same stronghold on the rooftop of this same gallery.</p><p>"Care for a dance?" Bruce asks, holding out a hand to Slade.</p><p>It's an opened palm, the absolute simplest of gestures. Slade has every reason to want the opposite of exactly this. He has his hair swept back from his face, his eye patch a very near to discrete thing. Slade isn't used to dressing up for a party of this caliber without ending the last stretch of his night with blood splattering all over his clothes as he makes a well-funded mess. </p><p>"You're sure you wanna do this?"</p><p>"I wouldn't ask if I wasn't." Bruce smiles, and it's a very diplomatic thing.</p><p>Bruce is entirely at ease here but Slade knows exactly what to look for. And Bruce's eyes track every exit point before he comes back to Slade, catching the stiffness in the collar even if Slade is wearing it like it's the easiest thing. His eyes go to the loose tie, to the bite mark high up over his throat. Lips only pursing in the tiniest display of displeasure to see how quickly every mark left fades thanks to his accelerated ability to heal.</p><p>Slade's eye finds the slip of silver chain just below Bruce’s collar that the man hasn’t removed. </p><p>"You do quite a bit of that, don't you, Mr. Wayne?"</p><p>"Only because I've got a mate who won't tell me anything unless I dig for it."</p><p>Slade doesn't care much for territory. Not quite like Bruce who might as well be pissing along the city limit of Gotham to make it his. Slade doesn't care much for pack. Not since his fell apart so thoroughly. This isn't Bruce dragging him into the folds of the family.</p><p>This is Bruce ensuring Slade understands that they are already well beyond that.</p><p>"Your mate, you say."</p><p>A tilt of his head, a chuckle at the way the socialite standing the closest to them widen their eyes at that one word, and Slade takes Bruce's hand.</p><p>It is every bit the gentleman in him to ask at all, given the way the Alpha in him has been snarling since the very start. Bruce doesn't need the taste of Slade's blood lingering on his palate to remember what exists between them runs deeper than any of Gotham's sewers go. But it's a lovely taste to go down his throat. </p><p>Bruce tugs Slade into the middle of the gallery space. The music has never once stopped, doesn't even startle or skip, but it's the kind of moment to feel like it could just about stall forever for them.</p><p>"My mate,” Bruce repeats out loud for Slade to hear. </p><p>The night has only started for the city's columnists. This is going to take up a bit more than a double spread.</p><p> </p>
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